Independence Day
by Not.Quite.Sane.In.The.Membrane
Summary: Oneshot. In which Tony explodes stuff, Thor's an idiot, Natasha rolls her eyes a lot, Clint uses bottle rockets in ways the manufacturer does not recommend, Bruce gets blown up more than once, and it's Steve's best Independence Day ever.


**A/N: I know this is way late, but me and my best friend had this idea while watching my redneck neighbors shoot fireworks up on the fourth and swimming in the pool. I think we might've been a little high. Anyway, today's her birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHAEL and whatnot. I think me trying to be funny in this sounds pretty dumb, but, whatever. Leave your opinion in a review, if you would be so kind.**

**Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish I did, I do not own the Avengers. That's Marvel, and Disney, too, apparently.  
**

When Steve Rogers wakes up on the morning of July fourth, he has the biggest, cheesiest grin on his all-American face. He leaps out of bed, even though it's utterly too early for a person to be awake (or so Tony would say), and nearly skips down to the gym for his daily morning workout. He runs five miles at an incline on one of the numerous treadmills, pulverizes two reinforced punching bags that Tony made for him, and bench presses a thousand pounds, barely breaking a sweat, and smiling like a fool the whole time. By the time he's done and has showered, it's about seven thirty, and the rest of the Avengers are beginning to wake up and blearily gather in the kitchen. He strolls in, looking entirely to _awake _for anyone else to comprehend. He happily gets out his favorite cereal (Cheerios) and pours himself a bowl, quietly humming "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" the entire time. Finally, Tony has had enough.

"What's got you so freaking happy this morning, Spangles?" he says sleepily.

Steve just blinks at him, then says, "It's the fourth of July! My favorite holiday!" Tony just gives him a looks that says _are you shitting me_, shakes his head, and goes back to his coffee.

Steve just keeps being happy and ignores Tony, munching on his Cheerios. Clint drops down from where his was hanging up in the ceiling (he'd insisted to Tony that when he remodeled the tower after the whole "Hulk smash puny god" incident that every room have exposed rafters so he could hang out wherever he wanted) and Thor opens his fourth package of Poptarts, stuffing them in his mouth like he hasn't eaten in a week. Bruce is slicing up a crap-ton of fruit and Tony keeps stealing pieces of apple when he isn't looking. Nobody's spoken since Cap, and by this point, Tony's a little more awake, so starts talking.

"Speaking of the holiday, I'm going be having the most awesome fireworks show tonight. You name it, I got it, it's gonna rock."

"And where do you intend to set these off?" Natasha asks, looking skeptical.

"Off the roof, of course! Where else?" he replies looking at her like she's missing something obvious. He shakes his head at her, and gets up. "Show starts at ten p.m. if anyone else wants to have fun," he says with a smirk as he walks out.

PAGE BREAK THING

When Tony opens one of the several huge boxes of various fireworks he'd ordered, he is very disappointed. The so-called "ULTIMATE AWESOME HOMEMADE LIGHT SHOW!" is quite frankly pathetic. These weren't the ones that professionals use, these are the lame-ass little things that rednecks shoot off in their backyards. Barely dangerous at all. So Tony sets about taking them apart and rebuilding them into something worthy of having the Stark name. He should sell these.

Right at a delicate point in assembling a particularly elaborate rocket (it's going to spell "Stark Rocks!" when it goes off), Bruce comes down into the lab and startles Tony, who in turns drop the small container of black powder he was holding, which proceeds ignite. The result is a small explosion that blows Tony and Bruce back a few feet and leaves the entire area in a three foot radius where Tony was just sitting charred black and smoking.

The small explosion is heard three stories above in the kitchen where Natasha is pouring a second cup coffee, but when she hears it, she drops her mug, and sprints to the stairs. Tony usually warns them when he's going to blow something up, so this could be bad. She meets Clint on the stairs, and says, "You got any idea?" as they descend quickly.

Clint replies, "Probably Tony screwing with fireworks, from what he said earlier."

Natasha thinks he is probably right.

When they reach the lab they see Tony and Bruce—who is looking less green than a moment ago, thanks to Tony—covered in soot, and Tony is laughing like the madman he is. He's saying something about being glad he was wearing his goggles when he notices the two agents.

"Oh, hey, guys! What brings you two down here to the wonderful world of science and mayhem?" he asks with a smile.

"Mostly the mayhem bit, at the moment," Clint says dryly, walking further into the workshop, "Your goatee is gone, by the way, Tony."

Tony's hands fly to his face and feel his chin only to find smooth skin where hair once was. Clint, Bruce and Natasha can only laugh at the expression on his face, which is halfway between anger and something that looks like a kicked puppy.

"It's not funny!" he insists, which just makes them laugh harder.

ANOTHER PAGE BREAK THING

Skip ahead a few hours to nine-thirty where Tony is getting ready for his fireworks show. After the, ah, _incident_, from earlier, Dum-E had been put in charge of cleanup and Tony had moved over to a different area of the lab and finished his fireworks. Now he has his big box o' fun and is going up to the roof, wearing the Mark V suitcase armor.

Bruce is already up there when he arrives, and he looks surprised for a moment, then shakes his head and rolls his eyes when he sees what Tony is doing. Currently, he's loading some of the smaller (but still more potent that anything store bought) fireworks into the shoulder launchers that usually held explosives of a more deadly variety. Clint comes up to the roof holding his bow and a suspicious-looking box, looking quite happy. Thor goes to the box containing the rest of the homemade fireworks and examines one with a puzzled look on his face.

"What is the purpose of this strange Midgardian device, friend Stark?" he asks.

"You shoot 'em up in the sky and they put on a pretty cool show," Tony replies, not looking up from what he's doing. "Just wait a second and you'll see."

Thor shrugs and pockets the little rocket he's holding. Tony grabs the rest of the box, flies about fifty feet above the roof and calls down, "You guys ready?" Natasha just rolls her eyes while Steve bounces up and down excitedly.

Tony sets off the five rockets in quick succession, huge, bright, brilliant things in all different colors that take up the whole sky above the tower. The people down in the street gaze up at the sky, thanking their lucky stars and stripes (see what I did there?) that this instance of lights above Stark Tower _wasn't_ an alien invasion.

Clint smirks and grabs his bow and the box he's brought up, and opens it to reveal that it's full of bottle rockets that Tony has obviously pimped out. He nocks one of them on his bow and lights it, and shoots it up, hitting Tony in his armored ass. It ignites then, and circles around Tony a few times before flying straight up and exploding, causing Tony to almost drop his box, which would've sucked. He yells down at Clint to, "Cut that out, you little shit!" Clint ignores him and fires another one.

While this little exchange is going on, Bruce finds those little popper things that you throw on the ground and scare the crap out of people with. Currently, the tactic is working fabulously on Thor, who nearly jumps out of his Asgardian skin when Bruce throws one right next to his pinkie toe. Before yelling at Bruce, he lets out an impressively girlish squeal.

"BANNER! What is this sorcery you have concocted?" Thor booms out, because even when he's not scared, Thor always booms. Bruce just laughs and throws another one, then explains to Thor. "They're just smaller fireworks, Thor. No sorcery, just black powder. They're called snaps."

Thor seems to contemplate this for a moment, and looks up just in time to see Tony toss a particularly large rocket up in the air, take steady aim, and light it with a repulsor blast. It shoots up, explodes and spells out "AVENGERS RULE" and fizzles out. Then Thor says, "These fire-words, I like them." He pulls out the uber-firework he'd slipped in his pocket earlier and holds it in his hand. "ANOTHER!" Thor then takes the fuse between two fingers and sends a massive electric jolt through it, and the second uncontrolled explosion of the day goes of in Bruce's face.

The reaction is nearly instantaneous.

Bruce is green and not-so-jolly seconds after Thor's dumb-ass attack, with the soot marks still covering his rage-tastic face. Steve grabs his shield, which has been on his arm all day; he's glad he has an excuse now. Clint goes from aiming his loaded bow at the back of Tony's head to the center of Hulk's chest, and Natasha pulls out her hidden gun that she has on her person at all times (and that means _at all times_; there was an incident with a nosy Stark and slinky cocktail dress, but that's a story for another time). Thor looks dumbstruck and exceptionally comical, what with recently being exploded and just swears and flies back down to the rooftop, because for some reason that nobody gets at all, the Hulk has decided that smashing the shiny sarcastic guy is a "do not want", to put it eloquently. Tony lands heavily and flips his faceplate up.

"Hey, Big Guy. What's up?" Tony says very nonchalantly.

"Big boom. Hulk no like," comes the grunted reply, "Hurt Bruce."

"Completely understandable, my dear Hulk. You good now?"

"Hulk want smash." And with that, Hulk goes gallivanting off to the nearest dump to smash the shit out of some old dilapidated cars. Steve makes Tony follow, to make sure Harlem doesn't get broken again, or any other neighborhoods, for that matter. Tony, of course, just _has_ to decimate a little bit too, so he and a de-Hulk-ified Bruce both come back looking happier than they did when they left. The team puts the resident rage-monster-turned-really-smart-dude to bed, on account of being the Hulk is apparently quite exhausting.

The Avengers that are still conscious gather out on the roof again and Tony fires of the rest of the box, and asks Steve, "So, best Fourth of July ever, eh?"

Steve, who's gazing up at the last of the falling sparks, answers, "Pretty much."

**Please review, they're like drugs of awesomeness that make you feel good about yourself. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.**


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